


chance may (un)crown me

by Nimravidae



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A fairy tale, Aesthetic Mostly, Consort Crowley, Falling In Love, Good Omens Big Bang, Hair Washing, M/M, Story within a Story, consort au, ish, tender love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22609588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/pseuds/Nimravidae
Summary: A consort to the last-born prince, Crowley slowly falls in love as he's told a love story.(Consorts! Fairy Tales!)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 827
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations





	chance may (un)crown me

Art by the gorgeous and ineffable khiroptera!

* * *

[](https://i.imgur.com/DEPeShK.png)

* * *

Crowley hadn’t realized how vast the kingdom was until the fourth hour he watched farmland and villages roll past from the window of his carriage. He had been born in the urban sprawl near the palace; he remembered it being endless—the markets unfurling for miles and miles ahead of his exhausted feet as his mother scrounged for loose coins on corners and pointed his slim, quick, fingers towards gaping pockets. The last memory he had of it was being swept up, watching his mother's back disappear. 

He blinked back whatever thoughts rushed towards him, tumbling carelessly into a knot in the base of his throat, and glanced down at where his trunk rattled against the floorboards. Crowley really hoped the people who’d packed it for him hadn’t gotten a bit _forgetful_ with his belongings. 

He would’ve preferred to pack it himself but, well, he wasn’t given much choice. Sniffing, he turned his eyes towards the horizon—the spires of the palace stretched towards the skies, the gold and red of the royal flag flapping in the early-summer breeze. 

Crowley had been a consort, a concubine, a kept-whore for years. He was used to the movement, used to a strange face walking into his suite, his room, his corner, and informing him with a gesture that he belonged to them now. 

Wasn’t so bad, once he got used to it. He had lived for a handful of months in a consort-house, place with contracts and names on advertisement. He’d lived there before, been bought up, but the master fell short of his debts and he was collected back once more. Before that, there had been a noble with more money and space than he had ideas to do with it. Before that, it had been man with more debts, and before that another.

He spared a glance towards the box. All it held was his clothing (more silks, really, with one pair of breeches, a hunting shirt, and riding leathers secreted inside them), his shoes, his pots of flush-red rouge. At the bottom, wrapped in velvet, was his jewelry. 

All he needed. He’d received most of them as gifts here and there—occasionally from one of his past masters, most often from a visiting noble that was permitted a night or two with him and made the terrible mistake of wanting more. 

He untied the ribbon in his hair and let it spill out over a shoulder, fiery waves tumbling down his chest. He thought for a bit as he combed bony fingers through the tangled mess in order to rebraid it properly. 

He was going to the palace, afterall. Best to look his best. 

It had only been a day ago when the master of the house swept in, her face aglow with pride and excitement, to inform him that he was being considered as a gift for a royal. A rather uncomfortable looking courier with a frayed tabard of the royal family scanned him up and down before delivering a sack of coins onto Madam Tracy and signing him away. 

After much effort, Crowley managed to wring some information out of the pair of them. He was, apparently, a gift for the last-born Prince on the occasion of his 35th year. 

While Crowley often considered himself a connoisseur of the finer things, he had no clue which Prince was the last-born. Even sitting in the wobbling and jolting carriage, on his way to be presented to him, Crowley hadn’t an inkling. He could more or less imagine them all in a row, from the last time he had been on the arm of a wealthy land-owner during one parade or tour through their village.

_Everyone_ knew Prince Raphael. Standing tall with square shoulders and a close-cropped and carefully arranged head of chestnut brown hair. The heir to the throne, the sort who was a comfort to everyone who knew that one day he’d be in charge. All Crowley ever heard of him were good things. And not even the usual sort of _good things_ the common folk spewed about the royals 

If you stumbled across one who never knew of Raphael, they knew of Michael. The slayer of tyrant-kings, the brilliant strategist and bloodthirsty woman all knights threw themselves behind. She had lead the charge during the brief War of Succession, ousted the false-King and re-installed her mother nearly thirty years ago. Crowley had been a child, but he still shuddered to recall the confusion, the upset, the fear. 

Best not to dwell on it, he thought. Sniffing once, he crossed his legs and shifted to continue staring out the window. There were three more princes, that he knew. Toss-up which one he was sold to. 

He fell asleep somewhere between the edges of the kingdom center and the places where his memories grew sharper—only rousing when they rumbled to a halt and the driver dismounted, shouting something about a delivery.

There wasn’t even time for him to rub the sleep from his eyes before hands were on him, taking his trunk, ducking him inside a dark passageway. 

“Will I have time to bathe before I’m presented,” he asked, as someone heaved his trunk from the carriage. No one answered. “Or change?” He plucked at the edge of his shirt—it was baggy, borrowed from another man at the consort-house to make his trek more comfortable. Wouldn’t do to wrinkle his fine silks. 

He was certain he smelled a bit too. 

No one answered that question either. In fact, no one spoke a word to him, not even as he was passed to another set of hands mid-way through the passage. He was given over to a tall man bearing the royal crest, six golden wings sprouting from a sword with a halo circling the hilt. He bowed low to Crowley as those who had escorted him this far left him, all but one retreating back out of the musty corridor. He glanced about. It was damp, lined with torches. The other one, the one with his trunk, soldiered on ahead. 

There was a moment of tension, a bit of awkwardness where Crowley offered his escort a brief nod only to have eyes immediately slide away from him.

Right. 

He was a royal consort now, and that presumably came with particular rules that others were to follow. 

How he was supposed to sort them out when no one would speak to him, well, he wasn’t entirely sure. They started up their walking again after another tense moment, this time leading him away from the damp stone and into the heart of the palace.

Every inch of it oozed beauty. Crowley’s eyes immediately rose to the tapestries that lined the hall, each one part of some epic tale or another. In the distance, one image of Michael stood with her sword aloft hung beside another of the Queen sitting resplendent on her throne. Directly ahead of him was one that told the tale of a dragon-slaying, another beside it of some other Godly feat done by royals. 

Each one dripped with artistry. He hesitated as his escort stepped forward, hands wrapped around himself to his elbows, as if he might accidentally jostle one of the suits of armor that hugged the white stone walls, or topple one of the vases that sat on plinths in all the little alcoves. 

He shivered as he stepped forward, wincing as a dirty shoe touched the rug that lined the center of the hall. 

Ahead of him, the courier stared quickly down at the ground between them. 

Right. “I’m—” He swallowed. Feeling, for the first time in a very, very, long time, incredibly small, he followed. 

He was led to his chambers, led through to his bathing suite where three people waited around a steaming tub. 

“Ah,” he said, feeling some unknown knot of tension start to unfurl. This would be fine. Consort to a prince afforded certain luxuries, didn’t it? “So I _do_ get time to bathe. Good. Well—thank you.”

“Do you have scents you’d prefer?” One of them, a thin-looking man with a young face, asked. “The Prince enjoys rosemary.”

Crowley glanced down. “Rosemary is fine.” One of the attendants poured a measure into the vial, the other two watching him expectantly. 

Luxuries. 

Well, he wasn’t going to say no. 

Crowley tugged his shirt over his head, letting it fall before moving into his shoes and the rest of his clothes, leaving them in a pile before sliding into the hot water with a sigh. Immediately, hands were at him. He was certainly used to the poking and the prodding, his position in society was to be handled, to be touched, groped, felt, enjoyed. 

The scent of rosemary rolled off the water as he inhaled deeply, filling his lungs completely. He leaned his head back, eyes shut as someone took his hand and began to file and shape his nails. 

Oh, yes, this he could get accustomed to. Hands bathed him, washed the travel from his skin, washed his hair, his face, washed all of him. He was scrubbed down from head to toe and back again, his nails trimmed and hands massaged, until the water grew chilled. 

They didn’t speak much, but Crowley was fairly used to that as well. Masters tended more towards jealousy, Crowley found. Set rules in place, boundaries that Crowley existed to walk between. 

By the time they were done, Crowley cleaned and dried and re-dressed in the black-and-gold silks laid out for him, the sun was just beginning to set. There were two small windows on either side of the bed, not big enough to slither out of, but barred nonetheless. A tiny glimmer of golden light slipped through them as the attendants left him to his own devices. 

With little else to do but wait, he sat on the edge of the bed. The place itself was more than fine; a lush, expansive, bed that Crowley presumed would get more than enough work was framed with ornate golden posts that climbed up to the ceiling. Crowley’s fingers traced the designs of ivy and blossoms. He would’ve preferred something more of the wrought-iron variety, but who was he to criticize?

The canopy above the bed was the same sort of rich maroon and gold thread as the bedclothes beneath him. He plucked at the silk he’d artfully drawn around himself. That was black, edged in gold. 

Interesting choice for whomever selected it. Not that it looked bad on him. Near the door (locked from the outside, if the heavy _thunk_ Crowley heard when the servants left was any indication) sat a little desk, a small pile of parchment, a pen and an inkpot. 

As if Crowley had anyone to write to. To the left of the bed, a sitting area, complete with a squat table, a couch, a few chairs. Things for comfort, things to make him more at ease, more relaxed. Elsewhere dotted about was a chest of drawers, a vanity with a polished mirror, an open door that led to his bathing suite. 

His own belongings sat in a small trunk atop the desk. They’d been delivered ahead of him, but Crowley had been too focused on preparing himself to unpack them. 

Now, he figured he’d need at least some of his things. He unburied his rouge and his jewelry carefully, pleased to find it all present and intact. 

He always started with his hair. He had quite a bit of it, a thick pile of fiery locks that tumbled down to his chest. It was soft, well cared for, and well-managed. He took the time to braid it to one side, securing the end with a ribbon someone gave him once, promising that it matched the gold that flecked his eyes. 

With that, he ensured its place with pin lovingly shaped as a delicate bird, eyes made of ruby and diamond. He slid a few layers of gold and emerald necklaces onto himself, and fit the bands wrought of twisting serpents over his forearms. He stepped back to examine himself in the mirror and adjusted the drape of his silks a few more times before applying the rouge in sweeps across his cheekbone, then dabbed along his lips. 

Perfect. 

A meal fit for a King. Well, he thought, as the sound of footsteps and quiet bickering echoed from the halls. Fit for a Prince. 

_Gabriel, this isn’t a very funny joke._

_It isn’t a joke, brother._

_It_ best _be—_ The argument cut out as the door swung open, held in place by one of two guards that Crowley wasn’t even aware was stationed outside. 

Two men stood in his doorway, one looking rather pleased with himself—dressed in the same gold-and-red as the entire room was done up in, sweeping cape hanging from his shoulder and royal crest emblazoned on his chest. Impossible not to recognize him, to not know him. 

Even if Crowley would much rather _not_ know him.

Crowley bowed at the waist. “Prince Gabriel, and er—” He blinked up at the other, looking quite pale in his own clothes. The same royal crest, the same heavy-looking cape—but these in much more muted blues and golds. His brain really did try but there were just so damned _many_ royals. “Princes.” He settled on, bowing lower.

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, turning that wicked grin towards Aziraphale. Aziraphale, _Aziraphale,_ that was it. Prince Aziraphale, the bookish one who rarely made an appearance. 

The youngest. Ah. _Damn._

Aziraphale didn’t acknowledge the mistake, instead turning to face Gabriel with a righteous look of indignation and rage. “You did! Gabriel what—what would _mother—_ and the people and—I specifically told you I did not want a consort.”

“Relax, brother,” Gabriel grinned back, with a smile that Crowley was beginning to realize was not so much kind as it was incredibly horrid. Menacing. Cruel. “It’s a gift.”

Crowley arched a brow at that, staying bowed, as one does. _It._ Oh he did not like _this_ one at all. 

“He—dear, sir.” Crowley glanced back up, finding himself addressed. Sir. Now that was a new one. “You may.” A gesture, and Crowley straightened, his hands folded in front of himself. 

“Your services here will not be required,” Aziraphale told him, his voice curt and prim—that was, admittedly, more directed towards Gabriel than himself. “We’ll have you set back to rights as soon as possible.”

“Oh you can’t send me back,” he said, faster than his brain could tell him it was probably not a great idea to speak out of turn with royalty. Judging by the way Gabriels brow’s jumped to his hairline, he was likely more than correct in that assumption. 

“We can’t?” Aziraphale asked, a sharp edge to his voice driving Crowley to examine the floor again. “Why, pray tell, can’t we?”

“My house does not accepts consorts back unless someone defaulted on their debts. Your highness paid in full, as was my understanding,” he gestured, placatingly, to Gabriel. “To be returned means I’ve not fulfilled my duty and no one wants a disobedient consort.” No one wanted their sensitive bits in the handle of someone risky, he supposed. 

Aziraphale’s shoulders slid back as he looked towards the heavens in search of some guidance. Nothing happened. “So where would you go, then?”

Crowley shrugged a shoulder, silks slipping delicately off it to expose a patch of freckled skin. “Whore house?”

“Oh.”

Messy business, whore houses. One doesn’t get luxurious silks, pots of rouge, gold. One doesn’t get warmed oils and baths. Crowley would more or less be stuffed into a rickety, drafty room and mounted like a stallion—used up in a quarter time it would take him in a place like this. 

He shuffled his feet, and didn’t offer anything else. Gabriel looked between the two. “Well, guess I’ll leave you to it then, Aziraphale.” And he was gone in a blink and a clatter of boots against the floor. 

Then it was just the two of them. Well, four if Crowley was counting the two guards—he wasn’t, they’d barely so much as breathed. Aziraphale stepped further inside, looking about the room before heaving another sigh and clasping his hands over his middle. 

He wasn’t un-handsome. Untidy curls mussed up as if he’d been running his fingers through him, frown lines making him look much older than his thirty-five years. He looked serious, like he hadn’t had much enjoyment in his decades. He looked soft, a touch more welcoming than Prince Gabriel. 

“Well,” he decided, after a few moments. “It seems you’ve been put in some nice chambers.”

“I can’t complain, your Highness.” 

That earned him a scowl, a flippant wave of a hand. “Aziraphale is fine, there are enough Princes before me that titles seemed of little use.” 

Crowley nodded, keeping his mouth sewn shut for the time being. Aziraphale watched him, expectant, for a while longer before asking. “And you?”

Right. His name. Instinct and habit respond for him. “Whatever you wish to call me, Aziraphale.” 

“I _wish_ to call you by your name.” 

In the house, they called him _boy._ At his former masters, he was Samuel, before that they called him Adam, before that, [name]. In bed, there were more. Whore, thing, slut, bitch. He’d had as many names as he’d had men. Swallowing his biting response, Crowley centered back on _his_ name. 

His name. The one he lost long ago. “Crowley, sir. Anthony Crowley.” 

“Anthony?” Aziraphale’s nose crinkled. “I had a _terrible_ tutor named Anthony when I was growing up.”

“Crowley is fine, if you find it more appealing.”

Aziraphale glanced around again, then down at Crowley, before looking back over his shoulder at the door. “Crowley it is then,” he decided, shoulders slipping down from the tight positon they had found themselves in again. “I really do apologize about this. My brother—Gabriel, the _Prince—_ He always finds himself too clever for his own good. But this,” he gestured, “bringing another person into his games. It really was too far. I’ll...keep you here until we can find use of you elsewhere. But I won’t shuffle you off to some whorehouse.”

Crowley frowned, mind working over all the places he could be put to use. Consort was one thing, palace whore was another. 

So was stablework. He really did hate horses. 

He slid a bare foot forward, then another, in careful, measured, hip-swaying steps. “I can think of a few places I could be put to work,” he crooned, putting on his best voice and his best coquettish look. 

Aziraphale flushed, a dark red burning up from his throat. “I really—no!” He immediately scurried back away from Crowley, looking remarkably unprince-like as he did. “No, no—I am not...I do not,” he paused, gesturing, as if Crowley’s look was some sort of explanation. 

“I don’t mind, your Highness—” 

“It’s _Aziraphale.”_

Frustration bubbled annoyingly in Crowley’s veins. He _knew,_ he was just trying to be seductive. Like he was trained, taught. Like he _had_ to be. Muscle in his jaw jumping as his teeth grit together, Crowley let the silks slide off his arms. They stayed cinched at the waist, baring his upper half.

He was beautiful, he _knew_ he was beautiful. Even with the faded scars under his ribs and across his back. 

“Oh, dear _Lord.”_

Crowley couldn’t help the smirk, really. 

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped up to the ceiling, the flush staining from his cheeks down under his collar darkening. His hands flew up to his face, scrubbing down it for a moment he managed to look back at Crowley. Something in his face looked horribly, terribly, pained. Crowley’s chest ached for just a flash of a moment before Aziraphale turned and left him there, rather alone and very suddenly rather cold. 

He flinched as the slam of the door echoed around him. 

Crowley was alone for the next four days. Well, as alone as one could get. His attendants came once Aziraphale left, trading confused glances once they realized he wouldn’t be requiring another bath. 

“Just a conversation,” Crowley explained, tugging at the edges of the dressing down he’d changed into. Even returned to its proper position, the silk felt too exposing. He’d shaken off his adornments, wiped off the make-up, and poured himself into the bed. 

Really, he should have been pleased. If his Master did not want him, he would not have to perform. There would be no late nights where he was awoken by a guard bringing word that the Prince was demanding him. No exhausting a libido that really seemed unfit for an age. No aching after-mornings, no second baths just to clean himself back out. No tending to bruises or scratches. 

The best case scenario for a consort was to be ignored, and, for four days, he was. 

Aziraphale returned, unannounced, on the fifth day. Crowley had finished another bath and was sitting, draped over the sofa, braiding his hair in the low-light of his lamps as he watched his tea steep. 

“Have you forgotten something?” he asked, before glancing up from his finger-work. 

“I just stopped in to see how you were settling.” 

The voice was far too familiar and absolutely _not_ one of his attendants. Crowley scrambled to his feet, ignoring Aziraphale’s outstretched hand suggesting he stay put. His tongue wrapped around the title before he recalled their conversation earlier. He dropped it and greeted him with a low bow. “Aziraphale.” 

Aziraphale looked decidedly uncomfortable and fiddled with one of his many rings. He looked much the same as he had when last Crowley saw him. More or less. He wasn’t wearing the cape or the royal crest, but he had the same untidy hair. The same ill-set look as Crowley straightened and wrapped the excess fabric of his wine-colored banyon around himself. 

“Looks a bit sparse,” Aziraphale noted, “have you sent for your things?”

Crowley sat back on the seat, gesturing to the tea still steeping on the table. Aziraphale nodded and Crowley fixed them both a cup. Jasmine green, a luxury Crowley wasn’t often permitted in many of his old houses. “My things were brought with me. I’ve already unpacked them.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale replied, eyes still flickering about. “Is there anything you’d like? I could have—well, I could have things brought to you. Make it feel a bit less…” he trailed off, nose crinkling as he took in his surroundings. Lush, beautiful, every inch etched in luxury and expense. “Bare.”

That, too. For a Prince, at least. Crowley set out the cups, one across from him and one before himself. Aziraphale took his spot, inclining his head in thanks. “Whatever it is you’d like, I’m sure I could procure it for you.”

Crowley looked down into his cup, watched the leaves swirl with residual movement. “I’ll consider it,” he decided on saying, tacking on a very belated, “Thank you.” 

There wasn’t much he wanted, at least not at the moment. He had fine clothes, fine jewelry—he could use some company, he thought, but that wasn't the sort of thing that Aziraphale could bring him. 

They sat in silence for a short while, the only sound between them the clinking of teacups against saucers. 

"Have you given any more thought to my position?" He asked, as gently as he could. It wasn't incredibly gentle, he would admit. 

Aziraphale looked up a bit surprised, conjuring a low noise of displeasure in his throat. "I have," he said, setting his cup down. "I wanted to ask what it was you would enjoy doing. Get your input."

Crowley blinked, his own cup following Aziraphales as he sat back in his seat. "This. Well," he spread his hands, "ideally I'd have a Master who utilized my skills." 

" _Master?"_ Aziraphale spat the word like it was filthy.

Crowley raised a brow, collected his cup again. His tea tasted bitter. Oversteeped. Though that might have just been the bile in his stomach churning. "Yes, ideally I'd be utilized. By you." 

"Again, that will not be happening, sir." 

"Please call me Crowley," he said watching a bit of pink burn the tips of Aziraphales ears. "May I be forward a moment?"

"You've already stripped your clothes in an effort to seduce me, Crowley, I cannot imagine you could _be_ more forward." 

It sounded like a challenge. Crowley always was bad with those. Something inside him sparked with the idea of winning, of being just victorious for a moment. 

He stuck his metaphorical dagger right to the heart of the question.

"Why don't you wish to lie with me?" 

Aziraphale choked on his tea, snatching a napkin to dab at his lips as fire raced up his cheeks and stained himself with a mottled red. It should have been entirely unattractive, but Crowley’s hand went to his stomach, where just a needling of affection started to churn about. 

Well manicured fingers pushed against the silk of his banyan, hoping to extinguish it entirely. 

There were a few moments of recovery for Aziraphale before he managed to set himself back to rights and clear his throat before informing Crowley, rather matter-of-fact, that, “It is inappropriate.” 

"To lie with _your_ consort is inappropriate?"

Aziraphale stood, abrupt, smoothing down his front and fiddling with his rings again. "Should you be speaking to—to a Prince like this?" He snapped, that ridged-backed look from his conversation with Gabriel returning. "Highly inappropriate, I would think.” 

“Apologies, your royal highness,” Crowley said, leaning back against the sofa. It would have been rude of him to point out that he asked if he may speak openly. He did not say it—but he thought it. For a moment, a brief flicker of annoyance curling up under his tongue. 

Aziraphale kept his nose to the air, raised up above the impropriety he so clearly found. “Well, I do think that is _enough_ of that. I came here to see how you were settling and to inquire if you’d given any thought as to your position here.”

_I have,_ Crowley would like to say. That he’d thought it over quite a bit and that the position he’d like to be in is the one he was currently in. Though, if Aziraphale saw fit, he’d gladly take position beneath him. The prince wasn’t unhandsome, and Crowley had decided already that he seemed enough of a careful person that he wouldn’t mind it terribly. 

Across from him, and across the table and the chasm they’d formed, Aziraphale squared his shoulders. “I’ve matters to attend to—royal ones.” 

It was a lie, both of them knew that but neither of them said it. 

Aziraphale was halfway to the door, a tangle of his own annoyance and frustrations, when Crowley found his lips parted and a quick, “Wait” falling from them. “If you’d like—a plant.”

Aziraphale had turned and blinked at Crowley. The windows nearest his bed were small, barred with thick metal—but if he tried, sometimes he could peer out them. There wasn’t enough space to really find the skies, but it hadn’t been long enough that Crowley might’ve forgotten how closely the rich summer afternoons matched Aziraphale’s eyes. Lovely, as they were, they were filled with a knotted up confusion.

“A plant?”

“Yes.” 

“If I’d like,” Aziraphale said slowly, “a plant.”

“You asked if there was something I’d like, something you could send for.” Crowley replied, “I’d like a plant.”

Eyes tracked around the room, landing first on the small window to the right of the bed, then the one to the left—and then all about, as if Crowley might be secreting away another source of light. As if he’d hidden one beneath his bed linens. They stood there, in a room lit by the paltry lighting of nominal windows and the false-glow of lanterns. 

“Erm,” Aziraphale started. “Dear boy…”

_###_

There is a lot to be said about assumptions. 

Generally speaking, one should not leap to conclusions, make grandiose and wide-spread claims. The world is, largely, a nuanced and strange place. People are not characters, they are not following the carefully-written plot structure. They do not have motivation driven by arcs and foils—choices do not always make sense and the underlying reasons behind them are as confounding as they are simple. 

Some assumptions, however, can be made.

For example: If there is a palace, one would not be out of place to presume it has a garden.

_###_

It was easier to take Crowley to the palace gardens than it was to coax a sprout to thrive in the lightless reaches of his chambers. 

Aziraphale had departed that afternoon, setting a time where Crowley would be collected, brought out to the gardens. 

There had been a garden once, in a summer home on the outreached corners of the kingdom. Where a quick-witted and quick-spending writer leisured in the sticky heat and Crowley kept his bedsheets warm. When he was alone, in the nights, Crowley wandered amongst the wild-growth of the plants. His bare feet in the grass and his fingers tangled in the branches, it was something ideal. 

He held that memory wrapped in the tendons in his chest as guards escorted him. Back then, far away, the gardens had been overgrown. Creeping tendrils of wayward vines breaking from the trunks to gesture outwards, crawling across the un-tended lawns—threats to those who might wander unwelcome amongst them. It was dark, amongst the towering pines and the stretch of the leaves. 

It wasn’t so much here.

There, it had been abandoned, the derelict expanse that came with the carelessness of owners. This was well-tended. Overpruned and over-shaped until it no longer recognized the familiar brush of wilderness.

Crowley started taking his mornings in the garden. Then his mornings and his afternoons. It wasn’t long until he was spending his entire day there—escorted out at dawn, when he pulled himself from his bed and lingering between the rosebushes until the sun long-set. 

People weren’t permitted to speak with him, they barely dared to 

Aziraphale visited him there, on occasion. First it started with updates, with the _oh well we haven’t quite found place for you yet — but you’re comfortable here?_ And with the _I had a new set of clothing made up for you, it doesn’t seem proper that you’ll be out here in those._

Sometimes it was with food, with Crowley lounging out in the sun-spots, warming himself over the grass when the shadow fell over him. “Good afternoon, dear boy.” 

_Dear boy._ Aziraphale had started calling him that nearly a month ago, words tripping off his tongue with ease. 

Crowley sat up, the formalities of their first few meetings bleeding behind. “Your royal highness.” 

Aziraphale’s face twisted into a frown, something entirely charming behind Crowley’s throat. “Right I thought—” He cleared his throat. He was standing there, in his blues and golds, a book tucked beneath his arm and a small bundle hanging from his other hand. “I thought you might enjoy a spot of lunch.”

His brow climbed to his hairline. Aziraphale flushed. “It’s a fine day out and I suppose, well, I supposed it wouldn’t be remiss to enjoy it with my book. That is, if you don’t mind the intrusion.”

Crowley tilted his head, hair spilling out over his shoulder. “I don’t. You’re more than welcome to, my prince.”

_Sit here,_ he thought to himself. _Sit with me — tell me why you still won’t touch me._

_I’m here for you, ready for you._

Aziraphale sat, a respectable distance away, in the grass and he read. 

Crowley watched, sharing bites of fruit and cheese between the two of them. 

_###_

The next day, Aziraphale came again. And the next. 

Until he finished his book with a weighty sigh, set it aside, and laid himself in the grass beside Crowley. Their lunch forgotten, untouched. All Crowley could see, all he could note, was the setting sun. The heat against his skin and the glimpse of the sunlight tangled up in Aziraphale’s hair. 

For a night, in his cold chambers, Crowley’s chest crawled with the worry that, perhaps, Aziraphale wouldn’t join him again.

He tried not to fret, tried not to twist his bedlinens up in his hands and mutter to himself that such a thing would be absurd. He didn’t _care_ what the prince did, he didn’t require anything from him. He didn’t care if Aziraphale never came to the gardens again—nonsense, the prince was nothing to him.

Not a thing at all.

He was only the singular person with whom Crowley could speak. 

Not that Crowley waited for those evenings. Not that his chest seized with something too close to _concern_ for comfort with the worry that maybe this time Aziraphale wasn’t coming. Maybe this time he wouldn’t be there. 

Maybe now he had grown tired of his consort-that-wasn’t. 

Maybe now he would send Crowley away. (That thought, of them all, haunted him. His stomach churned over the idea of being served from Aziraphale—no matter how much he claimed the idea did not bother him. It rose like bile in his throat, sticking up under teeth and tongue.) 

_###_

The next day, he came again. This time with a new book.

This time, with a new story open before him, Aziraphale read aloud. 

_###_

The story that Aziraphale read was about a witch. One who lived in the depths of the woods, with nothing but her dragon to keep her company ( _A dragon? Really?)_ Yes, Crowley, a dragon. ( _Dragons are—they’re properly massive, aren’t they?)_ This one was approximately the size of a horse. _(Well horses are big too, aren’t they?)_ Quite. 

She and her dragon, a large—approximately horse-sized—creature with oil-slick scales and a mouth full of razor teeth, were hated by the townsfolk. Reviled and feared, they rarely emerged from the depths of the forest, for when they did they were met with raised swords and fierce words. 

One day, a young man—the son of a captain _(What sort of captain?)_ A knight. _(Was he a knight too, then?)_ He was, Crowley, now hush, please. I’m telling a story. 

The young knight decided he would do something about this witch and her dragon. He stormed off into the woods in search of the creature causing so much strife and anguish. 

But he didn’t find her. Instead, he found a woman by the riverbank, gathering flowers in her arms and filling the pouches of her belt with herbs and spores growing from the strangest of trees. She was beautiful, long hair tied back and brow pulled into intense focus as she sorted through the muck and river-water at her ankles. 

He tried to approach, to ask if she had seen a witch. She fled. 

The knight came again, the next day and found the same woman—this time filling a back with berries and roots. Again, she fled. 

For a whole season, the knight went looking for this witch, only ever find the woman. He tried to follow her, hoping that maybe she had information on his witch, on the cursed places where her gnarled hands must’ve touched—on the spots where surely, the world must die around her, as all things do in the face of evil. _(Oh that’s absurd)_

I know. _(All things die in the face of evil? What sort of—Aziraphale, with all the respect that I must give to a prince of your caliber this is hogwash.)_ Crowley, it’s a _story. (Few things_ die _in the face of evil. This knight can’t find his witch because he hasn’t got his head on straight. What sort of lies is his father feeding him?)_

Terrible ones, I’m afraid. _(Oh.)_ It’ll be alright, dear boy. This story has a happy ending. 

The knight succeeds in following her one day, in chasing down the woman as she fled—desperate for answers from her. He follows her all the way to a cabin, rough-hewn and built with love. It was surrounded by lush forest, by overgrown underbush and thriving gardens. The knight stepped so carefully around them. 

He called for her, but she didn’t return. 

Instead, the shadows beared down around him as an ungodly screech split the skies and shattered the tranquility of the woods ( _not tranquil if he’s hollering her name). Crowley._ ( _Sorry, your highness.)_ And the dragon landed there behind the knight, bellowing out another sound. 

The knight turned, fear in his heart — but he did not reach for his blade. He did not jump to fight him. He held his hands aloft, surrendering to the dragon. 

In that moment, the woman emerged from her cottage, she shouted at the dragon to stop, to stand down and let the knight pass. The knight whipped around. 

_Go,_ she said. _And never come back._

_(I thought you said this had a happy ending)_ It’s not over yet. 

_###_

The sun set, and Crowley and Aziraphale did not leave. Aziraphale set the book aside, barely half-through considering the interruptions. They laid out that night, and watched the stars. 

Crowley turned, drinking in Aziraphale in the cold-cast moonlight. His eyes were closed, he looked serene. Crowley did not recall falling asleep—but when he woke, his prince was still beside him, curled on the manicured grass as the night stretched endlessly on.

_###_

It rained the following day, which found Crowley and Aziraphale in the library—a roaring fire in the hearth warming their feet. They sat, near one another, tea cooling between them, as Aziraphale found his place once more. 

Crowley settled into a chaise lounge, Aziraphale in an overstuffed chair closer to the fire. 

He closed his eyes and listened to the melodic voice begin. 

_###_

The woman stood, the knight between her and the dragon. The dragon folded his wings and bowed his head—a sign not of apology or deference, but of acceptance of his order. 

Her chest heaved as she watched the knight falter, watched him shudder at the closeness with which death brushed him. 

_Go,_ she said, once more. And the knight went.

He did not return to the woods the next day, nor the one following. It would be nearly an entire season before he dared toe the line of the of the forest, before he shook the fear from the cavity of his chest and beached the boundaries of the wood once more. 

There was no woman this time. No whispers of her song on the wind, no swishing of her skirt between the trees. There was no sign, no cabin left where once he swore he saw it. 

The knight thought, occasionally, that he heard wings on the night. That the breath of the drake lingered over his shoulder. The knight shuddered, and returned home. _(Not very brave now, was he?)_

He was trying his best, dear boy. He was trying his best.

_###_

Thunder and the steady sway of the wind against the walls—Crowley was asleep in minutes.

Aziraphale closed his book and laid to rest. 

When Crowley would awake, many hours later, it would be with a cold tea on the small table and a blanket carefully laid around him.

_###_

It was another season, a fall turned to frozen winter as the knight searched for the woman. He knew by now she was the witch. ( _Obviously)_ That’s not kind. _(Well, if he’d been paying attention.)_

He knew by now she was the witch, but he also knew he couldn’t slay her as intended. She’d saved his life that day, and she’d done nothing but flee from him every day before. The witch didn’t seem the harmful type. She seemed distant. Different. 

Something unlike anything the knight had known before.

_###_

The story came in parts. Interrupted occasionally by Prince Gabriel, by someone sweeping Aziraphale away. 

As the months churned, Crowley began to long for it to be Prince Gabriel. He at least would only sneer at Crowley as he passed. Michael, the princess, she was less kind. Cold eyes, a deep-set frown, she watched Crowley like she knew him. Like he was something to be warned of, something dangerous. 

Something unwhole. 

Crowley wondered, for a while, why that was. What she knew that he didn’t. The thought rarely lingered, however. As summer became fall became winter, nights in the garden ended and Crowley found himself wandering the library instead. The fire churning away and the heat melting at the frozen edges of himself. 

It was in the library that he first kissed Aziraphale. 

Curled together as opposed to sitting apart, his head on his shoulder as he read him the tale of the witch and the knight. He kissed him, tired and drunk off the sound of his voice.

Aziraphale did not kiss him back. 

He sat, stock-frozen and still. 

He left the room. 

Crowley fingered his silks, swallowing the knot of disappointment, and retreated to his chambers. 

It wasn’t until that night, with the birds crying their their last winter songs and the sounds of the palace creaking around them, that Aziraphale came. 

It was there, between the two miniscule windows, that he kissed him. Aziraphale pushed him back to the bed, swallowed his groans and his whines. They pulled apart and Crowley shivered in the frozen night.

“I—I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

There were thinks Crowley could have said. Things he wanted to say. Nothing felt right, nothing seemed the appropriate response. All he could do was lean up, and kiss him again.

Aziraphale would not leave his bed that night. Nor the next morning. 

He would only peel himself away, detangling from the sheets and the sex to order someone to draw a bath. 

“For you?” Crowley asked, rolling onto his stomach and pillowing his chin on his hands. 

“For _you,”_ Aziraphale corrected, re-dressing himself in his golds and blues. “Come now, let me wash you—I fear we’ve made quite a mess of you, haven’t we?”

_###_

“Your brothers would be displeased to find you like this,” Crowley said, not bothering to open his eyes as he tilted his cheek against the cool edge of the tub. Aziraphale’s fingers worked through another knot in the winespill of his hair, the silence running rivulets through the lines in the marble floors. 

Crowley didn’t need to open his eyes to see Aziraphale knelt beside his stonewash tub, his sleeves pushed past his elbows and his doublet darkened around the middle—damp still from where Crowley had shifted, splashed the bathwater up over the edges and drawn a perfect furrow between Aziraphale’s brows. He didn’t need to open his eyes to find the warmth in those springsky eyes, the sweet blue of a breaking summer dawn cresting over with affection and love and the deep underlace of _need_ and _want._

He’d long memorized as many of Aziraphales looks as he could. He’d branded them onto the back of his tongue over a summer caught in the tidal pull of one another, over a summer of fresh berries crushed under fingers and backs, a twist of fingers together and peachsoft mouths trading the taste of figs and honey. 

_I don’t need to open my eyes to know what you look like. You could send me back any moment, any breath, and I could never forget you._

The water shuddered as Aziraphale dipped his hands back in, gathering up a rosemary-scented pool. Crowley tilted his head back to let him pour it from his hairline, working it down through his hair once more. 

“They would,” Aziraphale said, brilliant fingers doing brilliant things to the tangled mess. “But they’re not here, so it’s really no matter to think about.” He leaned forward, lips brushing the anxious frown between Crowley’s brows. “Would you not linger on it, just for the evening?”

Crowley made a noise, rolling it through the back of his throat. _I’m thinking about it. I’ll think about it — what if they do? What if Gabriel bursts through the door, finds you tending to some common whore? There, on your knee before me, too much like supplication, too much like deference. Your fingers in my hair, your lips at my skin — would he know?_

_(he would, he would tear me from you, he would shatter us apart. Michael would usurp me from your life the way she did the traitor-King from his throne all those years ago. Her sword under jaw, bared-teeth snarl. She doesn’t even know why she hates me so much — she’ll learn.)_

Aziraphale frowned, a worried-noise there under his tongue. Crowley could hear it as well as he could taste it, it rolled through him and landed somewhere in his stomach, a rock of anxiety nestled between his ribcage. “You’re still thinking about it.”

Of course he was. 

Crowley signed, pulling himself forward—out of Aziraphale’s hands, out of the range of his touch. “It’s difficult not to, my prince—”

“I thought I told you not to call me that.” 

There was a knife’s edge to the unwavering parts of Aziraphale’s voice, cutting and clean as he snipped away the rest of Crowley’s sentiment, leaving him to rub at his shoulders with his own hands. The skin rose in gooseflesh with the cool air, a contrast to the blister-warmth of the water sloshing around him. 

“My mistake.” 

Behind him, Aziraphale sighed. “No—Crowley, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” 

_An apology to a common-whore. Speaking of things unbefitting for a prince._

_Speaking of things that would drive Gabriel mad._

“It frustrates you,” Crowley noted, turning to find Aziraphale frowning that anxious frown behind him. It was familiar, by now — even if Crowley would much rather it wasn’t. 

“It does. I… I know we cannot _erase_ what already exists but I’d rather we not point it out so obviously.”

As if there was no forgetting. As if Aziraphale’s chest was not blazoned with the royal insignia. As if there was not a forever-mark there, in the jut of his chin and the familiar point of his nose, and the sternness and confidence to the sharpness of his eyes. 

A passing glance might forget, might look over all the marks that sing down from the tapestries, from the paintings that adorn the halls and the chambers and the courts—a family stretching as far back as the oceans stretch outwards and the skies bend up. As if Aziraphale wasn’t branded.

As if he wouldn’t be forever. 

Crowley swallowed, a movement to his throat that one might claim nervous. “Of course. Won’t happen again.”

_(It will. It will because how could you forget. Your place. His?)_

Lips fell to his forehead once more as Aziraphale deemed him done. He helped him from the tub and wrapped him in a towel. There was no use dressing, no use pretending as though they wouldn’t fall right into Crowley’s bed. 

They were a tangle, together. Hands and lips idly pressing and passing over expanses of skin—Aziraphale stripped, slowly, and carelessly, as Crowley lounged over over the bedlinens, skin still wet and warm. 

“You are gorgeous like this,” Aziraphale said, musing, as he quickly followed Crowley. His hands found his hips, his waist and back—all smoothing and slow and careful. There was no intention to the touch, no clear motivation towards anything beyond the casual—the wanting and the slow. 

“Must be a mirror,” Crowley said, pulling himself closer into the embrace. “My prince?”

“Mm?”

“Tell me a story?”

Aziraphale heaves a sigh, rolling onto his back and letting Crowley resettle against his sternum. “I suppose I ought to finish the one we started together, shouldn’t I?” 

Crowley hummed, his eyes already drifting shut. “Please. Tell me what happens to the knight and the witch.”

“And the dragon?” Aziraphale asked.

“That _bloody_ dragon—size a horse? Should’ve eaten the knight.”

Aziraphale’s laugh was quiet. Muted. “Wouldn’t be much of a story afterwards, would it?”

All Crowley could manage was a hum.

_###_

The knight found the witch on the edge of winter. She stood there, in her patchwork cloak and her frozen-white skin. 

She stared at him, head cocked. 

_I told you to leave,_ she said. 

The knight stepped forward. He’d abandoned his royal seal, abandoned his fate and his life behind. He dropped to a knee before her. _You are the witch of the woods._

She frowned. _I am,_ she said. _You are a knight. You’ve been sent to slay me. To punish me for crimes I never committed._

The knight bowed his head. _I once was,_ he admitted. He drew his sword, blade resting on open palms. An offering. The witch recoiled, but for a moment. 

_I cannot abide the things I do not love._

The witch watched and the wind whipped around them. _You know not what you do._

The knight _(former knight)._ Correct, my mistake. The former knight smiled at her. He saw, again, the woman by the riverbed, the woman who spared his life, who lived so peaceably despite the orders, despite those sent after her. 

The women who stayed here, in the snow, to watch him plead for her forgiveness. 

_Grant me refuge from this world,_ he said. _And I will be ever in your service._

The witch, with care and grace, touched the crown of his head. 

_###_

Crowley sniffed, cheek rubbing against Aziraphale’s collar. “Is that it?”

The book closed and set aside, Aziraphale hummed. “It is.”

“Rubbish ending.”

Arms twined around Crowley’s chest, Aziraphale buried his nose in his hair. “Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what?”

The smile pressed against him. “Tell me a story?”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Bang


End file.
